Made For Me
by mercyshowsnomercy
Summary: Tom just wants the dreams to stop. She just wants to be free. A Tomione one-shot inspired by the classical tale of Pygmalion.


It was still wrong.

Something was still off.

But what?

Tom took a deep breath and stood back from his work. He'd been inspecting it up close for too long. He just needed to view it from a different angle. Just needed a new perspective…

Just needed…

No!

A growl of frustration left him as he brandished his wand, blasting the statue to pieces with a venomous reducto.

It was the closest he had gotten so far, but it remained odious to him. Compared to the other castoffs it was a masterpiece, leaps and bounds above his first attempt which lay in the corner of his studio, glaring in its gargoyle like glory at his continual failure. It probably wasn't his wisest decision to destroy his latest edition in that respect. But the closer he got to perfecting it, the more his creations disgusted him.

If he were being honest with himself, it had been a futile endeavour from the start. Tom was no sculptor. A powerful wizard, yes. An exemplary student, undoubtedly. But a common sculptor, not in the least. He had tried his hand at both muggle and magical construction, finding a balance of the two to work best. Magic to mould the initial form, muggle to work out the kinks, sooth the features and feel his masterpiece take shape. There was something so primitively pleasing in the way the tools hacked at the marble, bending it to his will almost completely, creating every feature almost as he had envisioned it.

Almost.

But not enough.

* * *

Inspiration was needed. Some guidance. But he had lost count of the times he had apparated in and out of the various galleries and museums, eyeing up the works of Bernini, Donatello, Michelangelo, and marvelling at their skill.

He paced before their sculptures, squinting at the detailing, making notes of their strongest points as well as their failures. To most there was a displeasing, caricature like quality in his eyes. Their eyes were too bright, their poses too dramatic and their stories too convoluted. He supposed that they were but a product of their times, imbued with the spirit of mythology, excitement and intrigue.

Lazily, he flicked his wand, flitting seamlessly back and forth between the representations of Grecian and Roman heroes and gods. By now he could conjure up the images with his eyes closed, every curve and bend, every sharp angle in the face, and every crest of the varying waves of hair. Back to front or upside down, he could identify the greats because, like everything he did, he lived and breathed his purpose, strove for perfection and settled for nothing less. So he continued to study them. Day in, day out. Tracing their shapes with his mind.

But of every piece nothing called to him more than the Rape of Proserpina. Pluto's gentle yet firm hold on her waist and thigh, the grotesque softness of the stone where his hands grip her, the conflict of delicacy and roughness, her desperate plea, his silent elation, repulsive yet alluring. He wanted that skill. That skill of accuracy and realism. He needed it to be realistic. Perfect in its vulnerable humanity. Just like Proserpina with her delicate marble skin. He wanted to make the stone live and breathe.

He simply wasn't sure how.

Some part of him knew he must be able to. If muggles could do it then so could he. But part of him was tired of getting so close, only to have his work fall short of his standards. There was no greater pain than that of success merely glimpsed. He needed to hold it in his hands, grip it tight so that it couldn't escape, guard it, nurture it, make it his own.

Somehow he needed to capture that essence of adoration and elevation that permeated the pieces. Others should be able to gaze upon it and weep; out of love or jealousy, whichever they preferred, but their response had to powerful. Otherwise it simply wasn't worth it.

* * *

One final flourish, he thought to himself, smirking at his handiwork. One final flourish to finish his masterpiece- his queen.

One final chip. Then she would be unveiled before him, as she had in his dreams. Then he would understand what she meant, why he so desperately needed to find her form in stone.

One final step back. One final breath in. One final appraisal of his efforts.

Done.

She was done.

Tom frowned. It was her, exactly. But it wasn't the same.

Her lips hung miserly. Her eyes, downcast, were filled with a melancholy he wasn't sure how he had created. Her hair, wild and tangled and billowing, was trapped by the marble, not freed by it. The tiara he had fashioned for her was lost among the tresses and her dress, though becoming, seemed to share her silent grief as it hung from her frame.

In short, it was degrading, depressing, delicate. He couldn't stop staring.

Transfixed by her sad eyes and broken peace he crouched on the floor before her, looking up. He didn't understand; she was beautiful, an entirely faithful representation of the girl behind his eyes, but she was broken, somehow. There was none of the fire he had seen. None of the warmth. All that towered above him was cold and quivering. He pitied her. It. Her. He had never pitied someone- something- before. But this fragile thing that he had made rendered him helpless.

And yet, he reasoned, regaining himself, it still isn't right.

* * *

He didn't try again.

He had wasted enough time on the experiment, laying groundless faith in a futile pursuit. He was angry with himself. How long had he waylaid his plans? How many weeks had he let slip by? All in the hope of understanding something fathomless. It had been pointless. And its presence in his studio room served only to remind him how ridiculous he had been. Tom Marvolo Riddle was no sculptor. He was and only ever would be Lord Voldemort.

But he didn't destroy it.

He refused to go near it lest he feel the nagging tightening of his chest again.

But it was still there.

In the darkest corner of the room, covered by a sheet, it stood, peering at him through the tiny holes between the fibres. He didn't like the way it sunk him, threatened him with the flood of tears he had wanted to rob from others. He didn't like her diminutive frown or her dead stance. It made him think of one of the stories he had found in the orphanage- Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale", with Hermione frozen in her false guilt.

He had decided to call her that- Hermione. But he didn't dare look at her again. Instead he found every excuse to avoid his home. He worked extra hours at Borgin and Burke's, he invited himself to Malfoy Manor to purloin rare texts from Abraxas' private library, he threw himself utterly in his plans, in his preparations for a long research trip to Albania. He let himself be consumed by dark magic to the point that he felt wrong without some cursed tome in his hands or his wand spilling forth some disgustingly torturous spell. He was dark magic.

But dark magic still had nightmares. She still visited him in his dreams, only now she was transformed.

Where once she stood in her defiant glory she now sunk to the floor in wretched despair. Her eyes no longer twinkled with secrets he desired, but instead shone with quaking tears. She no longer laughed in amusement at his greedy crawl towards her, but sat at his feet and cried his name.

"Help me, Tom!" She would beg. But he couldn't move. He could not even turn his face away from her fractured features. "Save me. Free me." She would add, weakly as she faded, leaving him in darkness and harrowing confusion.

He didn't like to sleep anymore.

* * *

"Tom- help me!"

He woke with a start, fuming at having even been weak enough to fall asleep. Though, with the bags beneath his eyes, it was more of a marvel that he managed to wake up. Exhaustion had slowly been nagging at him, staved off partially by a mixture of anti-sleep and energy promoting potions, but as his body acclimated to the potions' effects, and as he went longer and longer without rest, his body and mind had begun to furl up at the edges as when flames lick the edges of paper.

A headache ripped through his brain, tearing apart the sinews holding it together, making him feel like dying or worse- crying. He was going mad.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. Maybe he should try a modified dreamless sleep potion instead. Anything was worth a try at this point, when even his spineless followers dared to ask him if he was okay.

As he pondered this the book he had been reading tumbled from his free hand to the floor, landing pointedly on his toe. In a senseless rage he sought to throw it across the room, upset with his weakness, with his vulnerability, with the stupid girl in his stupid dreams! But as he picked it up he saw a word he had not thought to find.

"Animation." He read. "In order to perform the animation of lifeless objects one must first find a suitable sacrifice that will serve to give its own life in place of granting one's object thought and feeling."

In confusion he turned to the cover page of the book- Ancient "Bloode Magik" and its Practical Uses.

* * *

The ritual was ridiculous. It was long, required ingredients that were either blacklisted by the wizarding community (or simply incredibly difficult to find), and also provided the problem of finding a suitable sacrifice; not just anyone would do to bequeath life on his queen.

Of course, Riddle himself had no issue with such, he was always willing to work for what he wanted and even more willing to delegate to his loyal knights. It was them who struggled.

Malfoy was enlisted to find and procure a list of articles so expensive it would make a small dent in his monumental fortune.

Nott was charged with concocting the various potions that would be needed to make the sacrifice suitable for the process.

And Goyle had the task of acquiring and sorting through vast amounts of texts on blood magic and runes, scouring for anything that might be of use in tweaking the spell.

And the spell required a monumental amount of tweaking.

Initially it had been created simply to make servants of small inanimate objects. It could make them move and follow commands but they could not think further than they were told to. They had no autonomy, no free will, and as much as Tom liked the idea of having an obedient servant who would not question his authority he found that he had rather enough of those. No- his queen needed a mind of her own, a voice of her own, a power of her own. She needed to have choice and choose him. She needed to want to stand beside him and rule.

But therein lied the problem.

How to give her that spirit?

* * *

Dark circles blighted his handsome features once more, but his eyes were far from dead as he pursued his work this time. Instead they shone with a primal glow; he was so close, he could feel it. Better than that, in fact, he could taste. It tasted like blood and sweat and smelt like a careful combination of mandrake root, phoenix feathers, and unicorn tears among other things. It also tasted like felix felicis, a precaution he had taken given the sensitivity of this attempt.

This was going to be it, he hoped.

He didn't know how many useless everyday items he had given life to, how many times he had played Frankenstein, piecing together fragments of marble and clay to make his own monsters, how many sacrifices had bled on that same floor.

It didn't matter.

This time it would work.

His choice of victim had been the hardest part, but he was pleased with his choice, especially as she hung, unconscious, above his queen. Bellatrix Lestrange had never been his favourite. Loyal and powerful, but much too unhinged, and much too obsessed with him. It would be nice to be rid of her, whilst he hoped that her finer qualities might pass on to his creation- his Hermione.

She looked divine. It had been too long since he had allowed himself to look but there she stood, in purity, in melancholy, in perfection. And soon she would fall soft in his arms to take her place by his side. If it worked.

With a deep breath he readied himself, making one final check of the runes inscribed in a circle around his queen. They were all in order, all as he had designed them, for the singular purpose of taking and giving life.

He whet his lips.

Then he began. The ritual required a steady chant in Latin, repeated once before every rune in the circle. He completed each with robotic precision, wielding his wand with a control and dexterity that even surprised himself under the circumstances. As he raced through the motions the air began to thicken with the strength of his spell. Above, Bellatrix started to stir. Below, the runes started to shimmer.

It was all coming together as he closed the circle and a crazed glint passed over his features as he felt the air hum about him.

"Vita ab mortem!" He cried, taking the final step into his place- facing his ivory maiden.

The unconscious witch woke with the cry, disconcerted and deathly pale. She spied Tom below her and made to call for him, only to notice that he was upside down and grinning at her with a rather unsettling grin. Her eyes almost burst with fear as Riddle raised his wand, and a pitiful "No!" almost made it past her lips before the silent slicing hex had torn through her throat.

Bellatrix's blood rained down, gargling her final screams and staining the white stone a violent red. In Tom's mind she had never looked more beautiful than now, trading her life for that of his goddess. But he soon averted his gaze to look upon his love.

The runes at her feet shone a brilliant blue, mingling with the slowly pooling blood to create a purple glow about the room. A hum seemed to emanate from the stone, pulsing through Tom and charging him with an irresistible urge to get closer. To touch her. To have her.

He just needed to know that it had worked. He just needed to see his Hermione alive and in his arms.

But just as the persistent pulsing reached its climax Tom was flung back against the wall. He gasped hopelessly for breath, struggling to keep his eyes upon the ritual. Not that it mattered. The second he had been launched backwards it had stopped. The purple glow faded. And the statue remained, blood soaked and immovable, amidst the dead runes.

It had failed.

Hesitantly, dejectedly, Tom dared to crawl across to his stony lover. He groped haplessly at her cold skin, feeling in its cruel hardness a repeated blow to his heart. Even his sacrifice's blood was cool now, leaving nothing but a sticky residue of the surface of his love. It was an offense to her form, to be covered in such filth, but she did not look the worse for it. She never could in his eyes. He drew himself up to his full height and found himself staring miserly into her eyes. How happy he could've been with but one of her living kisses on his lips, warm and wet and wonderful.

Maybe just as happy as to kiss her lips of stone.

A sad smile possessed him suddenly and he brought his thumb to her lips to wipe away the blood. Then he leant down, one hand resting on her waist, the other gently caressing her cheek, and he kissed her.

Thick, burning rivulets fell down his face as he pressed his lips into the stone, begging for her mouth to move against his, praying to feel her breath fan across his cheek, wishing for her hands to find his body.

He was almost angry that she didn't. No, he was definitely angry. How dare she defy him, when he had gone to all the trouble of that pathetic ritual, when he had wasted so many hours, and one of his most loyal followers for her sake. How dare she not kiss him back. How fucking dare she.

When he had humiliated himself in front of her! Shed tears for her! Given her his everything!

He wanted her to choke on his kisses, wanted to leave bruises on her soft little waist, wanted to make her gasp with how tightly he wound his fingers in her hair!

"Ow, Tom!"

He froze. He was going mad. That had been her voice. But she wasn't alive. Her lips were still…

Soft.

He wasn't sure what to do.

"Open your eyes, Tom." She said, softly, amusedly.

He shook his head.

Suddenly there were hands on his face, a body moving against his own stony form, hair tangled in his hands. "You can open them. I won't disappear."

It was a lie. It must be. She always disappeared when he opened his eyes. It stood to reason that this dream too, would end the moment he dared to open them.

"Merlin's beard, Tom. Look at me!" She cried.

The hurt in her voice convinced him to escape the nightmare before it got any worse.

And she was there.

"Hermione."

* * *

She had her brown eyes, and her frantic brown hair, and her delicate smile, and her gentle fingers and her gorgeous body, and his tiara encasing her perfect little mind. She was real. She was his.

Her cheeks flamed as he took her in, but her eyes were aflame in a different way, dancing as they took in the boy who had brought her there.

"Hi!" Her voice was uncertain but otherwise cheerful, and far, far too pleasant. Just like the rest of her. She tried to step closer as she thought of what to say but lost her footing.

In one swift movement he lifted her up in his arms, glad for the excuse to hold her closer. He had taken her to his room, laid her on his bed and allowed himself to simply stare at her for a while, ensuring that she wouldn't fade. She stared back inquisitively and he could practically see the questions piling up in her mind, threatening to burst. Tom admired how her deep brown eyes took in her surroundings, clearly trying to piece together her newfound place. Eventually the silence became all too much for her.

"Um, what exactly am I doing here?" She asked. He could feel her untrained magic radiating through her body, testing its boundaries, prodding at his own. It felt familiar. It felt warm. It felt perfect.

And that was when he knew exactly why she was there.

"Quite simply, my Queen, you were made for me."

 **A/N: Hello! It has been a while since I have done any fan-fiction writing as I have been extremely busy with exams the past little while but I have returned with a one shot! And for those of you who are following my other fic I promise that I will update soon- I have the next chapter almost perfect it just needs a little tweaking! For those who are reading my work for the first time I hope you enjoy this little morsel inspired by the Classical story of Pygmalion!**

 **I fully intended this to be a one-shot but I am now rather attached to it so if any of you want to see a sequel let me know. Bye for now!**


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